


The Homecoming

by noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth



Series: The Abandoned Bride [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, but not really, inspired by a scottish highlands novel, just go with it, sort of a scottish clans AU, they're married as kids but nothing happens until later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 20:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20102905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth/pseuds/noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth
Summary: At sixteen, Jon Snow was forced to marry his cousin Sansa, the eldest daughter of his clan's chieftain, in order to save her reputation. After the ceremony, Jon fled to Dorne, angry with his uncle for forcing his hand and resentful of his new wife for keeping him from the woman he truly loved. However, when a family tragedy calls Jon home to Winterfell five years later, he must face the bride he left behind.Five years after being humiliated and abandoned by a husband she never even wanted, Sansa Stark longs for true love. No longer a young girl, Sansa has grown into a beauty who has caught the eye of more than one eligible man, but with her husband yet living, she believes her only hope for happiness is an annulment. When Jon Snow finally returns, however, she finds she must decide whether it is worth trying to make their marriage work -- or if it was doomed from the start.





	The Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> Concept shamelessly stolen from The Guardian by Margaret Mallory. To be honest, I had mixed feelings about the book, but this Jonsa AU popped into my head and I couldn't shake it.

It was good to be back in his homeland. During his time away, he’d missed the North’s broad gray sky, its vast untouched lands that glittered whiter than the sands of Dorne. He’d missed the cold air, sweet on his tongue, and the familiar crunch of snow beneath his feet. After years of hot days, thick with humidity, he even missed the sleet and the storms and the pale sunshine, nothing at all like the vivid yellow heat that beat down on him in Sunspear.

Most of all, Jon had missed the castle where he’d grown from a boy to a man: Winterfell. The heart of the Stark clan’s territory.

He closed his eyes, releasing a deep sigh and pulling his horse up short as he reached the top of the hill that overlooked Winterfell. He heard his companions come to a stop beside him.

“What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get home?”

The question came from Samwell Tarly, the only non-Northerner amongst them, and Jon could hear the longing in his voice. Home would always be out of grasp for Sam. He’d been disowned by his father, who’d wanted a warrior instead of a healer for a son, and now he was no longer welcome amongst his own clan. When Jon first met him, he’d been an apprentice, a bashful, kindly young man whose round face turned pink beneath the eyes of the Dornish healer who supervised him, but he patched up Jon and his friends so many times over the years that they became friends themselves. When the time came to leave Dorne, Jon hadn’t spared a second thought before inviting Sam to return to Winterfell with himself and the others.

“Tell you what I’m going to do,” said Robb. He was Jon’s cousin and best friend and, most importantly, the eldest son of the chieftain — though at the moment he looked like nothing more than a carefree young man, as if he could not feel the weight of his clan’s future, heavy on his shoulders. “I’m going to eat a whole vat of proper Northern stew. I’m sick to death of Dornish food.”

“Ah,” said Theon, “but not sick to death of Dornish women, are you?” 

At Robb’s bark of indignation, Theon flashed a wicked grin. 

Theon Greyjoy was lean and handsome, with a sharp tongue and a tendency from the time he was just a boy to drag the others into trouble. Though he was in truth a ward from the Greyjoy clan, a peacemaking pawn in a decades-old territorial skirmish, he had grown up beside Robb and Jon like a brother, and he’d shown no hesitation when it came time to fight with them.

“You know I have to marry strategically,” Robb said, growing serious. “It is important, for strengthening the clan. No matter how much I like Elia, I can’t — ”

Theon rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to hear any more your Lady Lance. Although, now that we talk of marriage … ” He turned his attention and his laughing eyes on Jon, who, even knowing what was coming, still winced when his friend began to speak. “If I were you, Snow, I know exactly what I’d do when I got home. You’ve kept that little wife of yours waiting too long.” 

“Theon,” Robb said, a warning that Theon did not heed.

“First thing I’m gonna do is fuck a pretty woman. I suggest you do the same.”

“_Theon_.”

Sam frowned at Jon, the confusion giving way to a faint expression of hurt. “I didn’t know you had a wife.” Jon couldn’t blame him for his wounded tone. It was odd, to say the least, not to tell one of your best friends that you’re married, not even after years of knowing him. But this was different.

“I don’t.” Jon clenched his jaw so hard it hurt before he took a ragged breath and forced the words out: “I don’t have a wife.” 

He’d said it so many times since that damn miserable night five years ago, but somehow no matter how often he said it, swore it, it was never enough. He couldn’t forget and neither could anyone else.

It was Robb, not Sam, who responded. “Like hell you don’t.”

“She’s not my true wife.” Jon felt like he was pleading. “You know she’s not. And now that I’m back, I promise I’m going to petition for an annulment. I don’t care what your father says. It’ll be like it never happened.”

“You’re my best friend,” said Robb, but his blue eyes were hard, as if he were in the midst of battle, not on the brink of a homecoming. “You’re my brother. But I won’t have you hurting my sister. Not again.”

.

.

.

Sansa Stark dreamed of her wedding night.

She was thirteen and too skinny, with narrow hips and hardly any bosom to speak of, and though her mother assured her she was already a great beauty and would only grow prettier with time, she felt ugly and too pale in Catelyn Stark’s wedding gown, a dove gray dress meant for a woman grown. Sansa still wore her auburn hair in long braids. It only made her look younger, more childish than ever, nothing at all like the bride she once imagined she would be.

Of course, in those foolish fantasies, she’d been marrying the handsome son of a chieftain of a far-off clan, and she’d worn a beautiful ivory dress that she’d sewn herself, and the union was celebrated with an enormous feast full of laughter and speeches and dancing. She certainly never imagined marrying her bastard cousin, Jon Snow, who was quiet and sullen and three years her elder, a boy who would bind her to the Stark clan and Winterfell forever. 

It was not that Sansa disliked Jon. She’d known him all her life, had shared countless dinners with him at the family table, had gotten into dozens of snowball fights and stupid arguments, had given him advice on how to flirt with girls when she caught him mooning over a fisherman’s daughter. She trusted him. She knew Arya and the boys loved him dearly. And she was grateful, she was, for his help when she’d been in trouble that night on the moors.

She just didn’t understand why that help meant that Sansa had to marry him.

It was entirely unfair. She would never have that handsome chieftain’s son, that life she dreamed of far from Winterfell. Worst of all, Jon had made it perfectly clear that this marriage was even more offensive to him than it was to her; that marrying her was not just an unwanted prospect but also a repulsive one. Hours before the hastily-arranged wedding, she’d eavesdropped on Jon arguing about her with her father, his voice harsh and hard as she’d never heard it before.

“I won’t do it. You can’t make me!”

She could imagine her father’s impassive expression as he calmly said, “I am your chieftain, and I am ordering you to marry her. You’ve compromised her virtue.”

“I didn’t touch her! I would never touch her! Gods, Uncle, what do you think I am?”

“It doesn’t matter if you didn’t touch her. It doesn’t matter if she’s still a child. A dozen clansmen found you together on the moors, sharing furs. Robb found you.”

“Robb knows I was doing nothing but protecting my cousin.”

“She was already under her aunt and uncle’s protection,” Sansa’s father said, voice hard. “Did you steal her from them?” 

Not for the first time, Sansa wondered if she ought to confess what had driven her from her uncle’s home, but the words would not come to her. How could she tell anyone what her uncle had tried to do? Wouldn’t they ask, as Lysa had, what she had done to encourage him? Part of her feared that if it was known that her own family, a married man, had threatened her virtue, even Father would never be able to secure a husband for her.

“‘Course I didn’t steal her. I told you, I was on my way back from the Wall when I saw her. She was all by herself, out of doors, not dressed for the weather. I couldn’t leave her there.”

“You could’ve returned her to her uncle’s house.”

“Aye, when I found her we were still near clan Baelish territory, but she swore she wouldn’t go back there. She only wanted to go to Winterfell. I know she was being dramatic, but what would you have me do? We were too far to make it home that night and Sansa was hungry. She was tired. Could barely keep her eyes open. I thought it best to bed down for the night and take her to you in the morning.” His voice had grown earnest. “I thought that’s what you would want.”

A long silence followed this explanation, until her father spoke again.

“I’m grateful to you for looking after her. Believe me, I am.” He said it gently, and Sansa felt herself relax a little where she was hiding on the staircase. Maybe he’d realized this was a mistake. Maybe he wouldn’t make them go through with it, and she wouldn’t have to marry until she found a boy she loved. 

But then her father continued, “Now I order you to continue looking after her. You’ll marry her tonight.” Before Jon could object again, he growled, “You _will_ marry her — or I will make it known that you are the bastard who ruined my daughter. You’ll be banished. Sent to your father’s family. Don’t make me do that, son.”

Sansa couldn’t make sense of it. Surely her father didn’t truly believe that she and Jon had done anything inappropriate (to the contrary, he had saved her from being ruined!) and yet he was inexplicably insistent on the union, no matter the objections of his wife, his eldest son, or the intended bride and groom.

Whatever his reasons, he had his way, and they were married that evening before the heart tree in the godswood, witnessed by only a handful of their clansmen. Jon and Sansa mumbled the vows, never meeting each other’s eyes. When the speaking part was done, Jon hesitated a moment before he kissed her forehead chastely, but even that show of tenderness did nothing to obscure his hot fury at the situation, the tension in his balled fists and his clenched jaw. Afterward, they went straight upstairs to Sansa’s room, and Jon spread his cloak on the floor and lay atop it, never saying a word. Sansa climbed beneath her blankets and wept.

He was gone the next morning.

When Robb found her the next morning, miserable and cross and mortified, he settled at her side and explained, “He’s doing his duty. Valyrian raiders have been trying to conquer Dorne for years, and now there’ve been reports of Ironborn pirates on the coast too. The Martell clan’s position is far from secure. Jon’s not close to his father’s family but they _are_ our allies and he still wants to make sure they’re safe. That’s all.”

Sansa wasn’t fooled. “He hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you. He couldn’t.” Robb tucked an arm around her shoulders. “He just needs time.”

She wiped away her tears, furious that she was still crying over this boy, her _husband_, who couldn’t look at her or touch her or even be in the same country as her, it seemed. So this was to be her life. She would never have the warm and loving home she’d dreamed of, nor the adoring husband she’d always imagined. Would she ever even have a child, or would Jon deny her that too?

The months that followed were unbearable. Sansa knew the servants and nearby villagers gossiped about her constantly, imagining what she must’ve done wrong in her marriage bed that made her husband flee before the sun rose. Arya also blamed Sansa for Jon leaving, and she never missed an opportunity to berate her sister for driving him away. The tension between Mother and Father felt like it was somehow Sansa’s fault too. For a long time her mother wouldn’t speak to him, could hardly look at him, and she spent more than one night sleeping in Sansa’s room rather than her own. For his part, every time Father’s gray eyes sought out Sansa’s, they were filled with some unspoken sorrow, but he never apologized. He never explained himself. 

Robb was perhaps the worst. Never before one to show a temper, Robb began to argue with Father from the moment Jon left — about Sansa’s marriage, about the expectations of his own marriage alliance, about the future of the clan — and after weeks and weeks of making himself and everyone else miserable, he finally decided to leave as well. Theon went with him, both of them traveling south to help Jon and the Starks’ Dornish allies.

In the years that followed, occasional letters arrived from the south, carrying a few brief lines of news about the fighting. Usually the Dornish were winning. Usually all was well. Still, every time a message from Robb arrived, some part of Sansa seemed to expect that _this _time, the letter would bear the news that she was now a widow — but her fears or her wishes, whichever they were, never came true.

.

.

.

The year Jon turned fifteen, he accompanied his uncle on a diplomatic trip to the Wall, beyond which lived the wildling clans. That’s where he met her: Ygritte, a fire-kissed lass who took him to her bed and charmed him entirely. The next year, he returned to the Wall on his own and found Ygritte still there, still unmarried. He knew what he had to do. The night before he left the Wall, he kissed her fiercely and promised he would be back soon. He hadn’t told her of his plans, wanting to wait until it was certain. He would ride home and ask his uncle’s permission to marry her; once Uncle Ned agreed, he’d come get her and wed her and bring her back to Winterfell with him.

It was her he was thinking of that damned unlucky evening on the moors, when through the thick fog and the spreading violet of twilight, he thought he saw a faerie in the distance, a gleaming white figure moving carefully through the heather. Ygritte believed in faeries. She believed in all the old stories.

Jon pressed forward, directing his horse toward the figure, all of Old Nan’s warnings about faerie trickery but a distant hum in the back of his mind. He wanted to see her. He wanted to speak with her.

At last, as the sound of hoofbeats drew near enough for her to hear, the faerie turned around.

Jon blinked. It was Sansa.

She wore a bright white cloak, too thin to offer much warmth, with the hood pulled up over her auburn hair. She’d been fostering with her aunt and uncle for the past year, and she looked different now, significantly taller, more slender and more comely, more like her mother than ever. Still, she was clearly just a child. Her icy blue eyes were wide with fright, and when she recognized Jon, who dismounted as fast as he could, she nearly stumbled as she rushed toward him.

“Jon, is that really you?” Her cold fingers brushed over his cheek.

“It’s me. What in seven hells are you doing out here? You must be freezing.”

“I’ve run away from Petyr and Lysa. You can’t make me go back. I won’t go back.”

She tilted her chin up, stubborn as ever, but he heard the note of panic in her voice. He raked his eyes over her, searching for signs of injury or misuse, a bruise on her face, a tear in her dress. Thank the gods, she looked all right, clean and healthy and well-fed.

“What’s happened? Has someone hurt you?”

“No.”

He blew out a breath, relief and frustration sweeping through him. “Then I must take you back to your family.”

“I won’t go back there.” He nearly cursed when she grabbed him by the sleeve and tugged hard, forcing him to keep facing her. “I can’t go back. Take me to my father’s house. Take me to Winterfell.”

“Sansa, I really should — ”

“_I won’t go_.”

It was a lost cause; he knew her well enough to know that there would be no winning this argument, and he was too tired to try. “Fine. To Winterfell then. C’mon.” He puts his hands on her waist and lifted her up onto the saddle. “I’m heading home now.”

In her white cloak, she nearly looked like she was part of the horse, who was bone white himself. She shifted her weight in the saddle but didn’t hesitate to wind her fingers in the horse’s mane. She’d never been a confident rider, if Jon remembered correctly, and he would have to slow his usual pace to keep her comfortable, but he didn’t truly mind. She was Robb’s little sister, the eldest daughter of the chieftain. It was his duty to protect her.

He was fond of her, too, if he was being honest. She’d never treated him as affectionately as her siblings did, and Jon knew she found him rather dull, but he liked to hear her singing hymns in the godswood and giggling with the other girls who lived in the keep. She was full of life in a way entirely unlike her wild little sister and her boisterous brothers — quieter, softer. Jon had once found her crying over a newborn litter of puppies, her mouth curved in a tremulous smile as she looked up at him, full of awe. At times she could be haughty and unkind, and, as her latest escapade showed, far too dramatic, but mostly, she was a sweet girl.

Yet it was difficult, the next day, not to blame that sweet girl for ruining his life. If only he hadn’t listened to her pleas, if only he’d returned her to her aunt and uncle that very night. If only he hadn’t been so worried she would freeze in the night in that thin cloak, and he hadn’t told her to curl up beside him under the furs.

If only her father hadn’t assumed the very worst.

Even all these years later, Uncle Ned’s reaction confused and shamed Jon. His uncle couldn’t really think that Jon would disrespect him like that, disrespect _Sansa_ like that, could he? Maybe the position they’d been found in was compromising, and a few idiots in the clan misread the situation, but he had to know Jon better than that. But if it were simply about appearances, such an incident shouldn’t have been enough to ruin Sansa’s prospects. She was beautiful and a chieftain’s daughter. So long as she was not pregnant before she was engaged, she would find a suitable match.

So why had Ned threatened Jon with exile if he didn’t marry her? Worse, why had Jon been such a coward that he allowed himself to be persuaded? That night, his wedding night, as he listened to his young bride crying, he hated himself, and he hated her, and most of all, he hated his uncle. He was afraid, too. He didn’t realize it at the time, but he was petrified at the thought of facing Uncle Ned again, or seeing how Sansa’s heart broke when the reality of the situation sank in. Jon exiled himself the very next morning. He told himself it was better for everyone that way.

He always intended to come back eventually, but it was easy to stay away once Robb and Theon joined him. Two years passed, then three. The fighting slowed but never stopped entirely. Finally, after five years, Robb received a message from his mother that his brother had been in a terrible accident. _Please come home_, she had written. _We need you_. There was nothing for them to do then but to pack their things and turn north, all three of them, return to Winterfell and take their places in the clan. 

If only the law of the land didn’t tell him his place was at Sansa’s side.

.

.

.

They rode to the chieftain’s castle through the falling darkness, and the sky was near-black when they entered the main hall, where a number of the men had already fallen asleep by the fire. Most of the guards and servants who were present recognized them and hailed them cheerfully, and Jory Cassel even greeted them with bear hugs, all except Sam, whose hand he shook as he said, “A healer? That’s good news. Maybe you can see to young Bran, find some way to help him.”

That was enough to drain the men of their good cheer. Robb, his face hardened in a way Jon knew was meant to hide his sorrow, asked, “How bad is he?”

“He still hasn’t woken up.”

“What happened?” Jon wanted to know.

Jory looked at him, considering, before his brow began to furrow. “We shouldn’t talk here,” he said finally. He glanced at Robb. “It’s late, but I know your father is still awake. I’ve just come from his room. Do you want to see him tonight?”

“Aye. Jon and I will go. Theon ... ”

“My room still free?” Theon asked with his usual impish smile. “More importantly, is that serving girl Ros still around? The one with the — ” He made an obscene gesture in front of his chest.

Ignoring Theon’s antics (or at least pretending to), Robb turned to address Sam. “I’d like you to see my brother tomorrow, after we have a better sense of what’s going on. Jory, can you make sure Sam is shown to a room? Jon and I are going to speak with my father.”

With that, Robb and Jon wished their friends goodnight and climbed the stairs to the family rooms, passing through the corridor uninterrupted until they stood outside the Uncle Ned’s door. They exchanged a brief glance. Neither had parted on the best of terms with the chieftain. 

Finally Robb rapped on the door, and when Uncle Ned called out, “Who’s there?” he replied in a voice that betrayed none of his nerves, “It’s me, Father. Me and Jon. We’re home.”

.

.

.

Sansa startled awake in her chair, the sound of heavy boots in the corridor pulling her from unhappy dreams. On instinct she clung tighter to Bran’s hand. He didn’t notice, of course. His pulse remained slow and steady.

Her own pulse was leaping in her veins, fear flooding her as she wondered if whoever had tried to kill her brother had returned to finish the job. She wondered who would come running if she screamed. Her father, certainly. The men sleeping in the main hall. They might make it in time.

Then she heard someone say, “I want to see him,” in a voice just loud enough to be heard through the door. Someone else replied, “Aye.”

Her breath caught. She knew those voices.

Releasing Bran’s hand, she shot to her feet, but there was nowhere to go. Bran’s sparse chamber offered no hiding places, and even if it did, she was a woman grown — she couldn’t hide in furniture or under the bed. She had more dignity than that. Instead, she did the only thing she could do, smoothing her skirt and combing her hand through her long hair, schooling her features into a cool, imperturbable expression.

When the door clicked open, she was ready.

Robb entered first. He’d grown into himself, every inch the warrior, with broad shoulders and newfound height. He carried himself with the confidence of a commander, the confidence of their father. He’d also cut his hair shorter than she’d ever seen it. She wasn’t certain she liked it.

As for Jon … Jon was _handsome_.

He’d never been unattractive, precisely, but he’d had such a long, solemn face, his mouth always turned down in a frown, and she’d thought Theon, with his winning smiles and easy charm, was always the handsomer of Robb’s best friends. Now, she found herself raking her eyes over Jon: his dark hair, which he wore pulled back; his gray eyes, going very still when he caught sight of her; his face, only made more distinguished with the scars it had accrued; his solidly built frame, leaner than Robb’s but no less impressive, no less commanding.

He stared back at her for what felt like an eternity, his face unreadable, until at last she forced her gaze back to her brother. Robb’s beaming smile made it clear that he, at least, was happy to see her.

“Robb,” she greeted him. “I’m so glad you’re home. Does Mother know yet? She’ll be ecstatic.”

Before she could say another word, she was swept up in Robb’s arms, pulled tight into his embrace, his warmth, his familiar smell. She couldn’t help but let herself sink into it for just a moment, luxuriating in how comforting his presence still was to her.

When he finally released her, he took her face in his hands, his expression fond and utterly sincere. “Look at you, you’re so grown up.”

He meant it kindly, she knew he did, but she couldn’t hold back a sharp reply: “That’s what happens you go five years without seeing someone.”

Watching his smile dim, she had to fight the urge to apologize, to reach out for him again as he stepped away from her and lowered his eyes. She would not say she was sorry. He was the one who’d left.

Now with a trace of guilt, Robb told her, “We came as soon as we could. As soon as we found out about Bran.” He sighed, rubbing tiredly at his forehead. “Father says — ”

“You’ve spoken with Father?” She didn’t let herself look at Jon. “Both of you?”

“Just now,” Robb confirmed.

As he continued to speak, telling her some of what he and their father discussed, she could feel Jon’s gaze boring into her. She couldn’t, she _wouldn’t_ allow herself to meet it. He had no right to be angry with her, and she no longer felt any obligation to endure his sour attitude, his near-palpable disappointment, all over again. She wasn’t a girl of thirteen anymore; she was a woman, and she knew she was desirable to most men, even if Jon Snow had no interest in her.

To him, she was Robb’s annoying little sister, but plenty of men in the clan would’ve been honored to be wed to her. They would’ve been delighted, not horrified. Not disgusted. She knew it for certain, because men told her so all too often. The other day, she’d gone for a walk with Harry Hardyng, who had squeezed her hand and swore, _If you were mine, I wouldn’t leave you for five days, let alone five years. _Harry was not the only one to express such sentiments. With her husband absent, men paid little regard to her status as a married woman, and they had few qualms about letting her know just how much they wanted her.

“Where’s Theon?” she finally thought to ask.

“Gone to bed. We brought a friend as well, a healer. We were hoping he could help Bran.”

This reminder of why they’d come home in the first place shook Sansa from her bitterness. Her pride mattered little compared to Bran’s life. 

This thought was enough to make her step aside and gesture them toward where Bran lay on the bed, tucked beneath layers of furs, as peaceful as if he was just sleeping, but too small, too pale, for her to let herself pretend. “Mother and I try to stay at his bedside as much as we can, but he’s shown no signs of waking. I’m so — ” Her voice cracked, and out of the corner of her eye she saw both men step closer to her. She jerked her head in a clear dismissal. She didn’t need them to take care of her. “I’m worried about him.”

For the first time since he’d seen her, Jon spoke. “Sansa … what happened? Uncle Ned says it wasn’t an accident.”

“Mother was the first to suspect.” She kept her eyes on Bran while she spoke. Despite being on the very cusp of manhood and taller than her besides, he looked like a little boy in his sickbed. He’d been so full of life, full of promise. She couldn’t bring herself to accept he was lost to them forever. “She wouldn’t believe that it was just an accident. You know Bran, he doesn’t fall.” She bit her lip, before she pushed past her hesitation. Father probably already told them the whole of it. “There was another clan visiting when it happened. The Lannisters.” 

Only when Jon hissed out a breath did she remember that his father’s family and the Lannisters were bitter enemies. Maybe Father _hadn’t_ told him and Robb the whole story. Maybe he feared they would do something stupid. 

“No one saw anything,” she hurried to add. “It’s all just speculation. We will get justice when we can, but we can’t accuse anyone without a shred of evidence, let alone the Lannisters. They’re too powerful. We’ll start a war. But I admit, it was suspicious timing.”

A furrow had appeared on Robb’s brow. “Why would the Lannisters want Bran dead? He’s just a boy.”

Sansa bit down on her tongue before she said something she regretted. Robb had been gone, she told herself, and could not know how it had been here, how precarious their family’s position had become.

“He’s not just a boy,” she explained. “While you were off fighting in the south, Bran was the future of this clan. For all we knew, you could’ve been killed any day, and if you were, then he would’ve been our next chieftain. If he died, it would fall to Rickon, but no one would be willing to rally around Rickon, not for years. Men follow strength, you know that. Rickon is not yet ten years old.”

“That’s only if something happened to Father.”

“Father isn’t immortal. He hurt his leg badly last year — did he tell you? Took a blade through the thigh in a skirmish with the Freys. He could’ve died.” He almost did.

Robb paled, and Sansa silently cursed her father’s stubbornness. He should’ve summoned Robb, his heir, the moment he was injured, but for reasons known only to him, he hadn’t. He hadn’t even told Robb what had happened.

She barrelled on, forcing the men back to the matter at hand. “But maybe you’re right and what happened had nothing to do with the chieftainship. Maybe Bran offended the wrong person. Maybe he saw something he shouldn’t have. Maybe we’re being paranoid and he did just fall from the Broken Tower, but … ”

How could she explain the misgivings she had about the Lannisters? They’d come to Winterfell under the banner of friendship, ostensibly to discuss a marriage alliance between Arya and Tommen, but even when Arya screamed and shouted that she wouldn’t do it, the Lannisters had remained in the North, not merely persistent in their efforts to form an alliance but unfailingly pleasant too. Suspiciously pleasant.

At first Sansa had been completely charmed by the entire family: Jaime Lannister, handsome and golden and valiant, and his sister, Cersei, who was the most beautiful and elegant woman she’d ever met. Sansa was fast friends with Cersei’s daughter Myrcella, and she thought Tommen was sweet, and then there was Cersei’s oldest son, Joffrey, who made Sansa wish with every fiber of her being that she was not a married woman. She’d almost gone to her father demanding an annulment. It was a demand she’d made dozens of times, but this time, she wouldn’t have been persuaded to be patient, to wait until Jon came home. She wanted Joffrey. She thought she could really love him.

Then Joffrey’s mask had slipped, the charm falling away as easily as brushing a snowflake from his shoulder. It was not enough that it turned out he was already engaged to Margaery Tyrell, and had been looking upon Sansa as little more than a potential conquest. No, once he’d come to grasp her situation — that she was not unmarried or widowed, as he’d thought, but rather an abandoned, unprotected wife — he realized just how vulnerable she was. Because her father had no real claim over her, not anymore, only her husband could object if Joffrey hurt her, and Jon couldn’t do that from Dorne, even if he was willing. Even her virginity offered no protection, for there were few who believed that her marriage was truly unconsummated. Joffrey certainly didn’t seem to believe her when she was pleading with him to leave her alone.

She hadn’t been so terrified since the night she fled from Petyr Baelish. The cold cruelty in Joffrey’s eyes was unlike anything she’d ever seen. Only the appearance of Joffrey’s uncle arriving at the stables to call them into dinner had saved her. After that, she made certain never to be alone in Joffrey’s presence again.

“But what?” Jon prompted. “You think the Lannisters _were_ involved?”

She made the mistake of meeting his eyes then, and the intensity she found there almost knocked her off her feet. They were grayer than she remembered. Darker.

“But … ” She wet her lips with her tongue, trying to find the words. “But … I think Mother’s right, and so does Father. Someone tried to kill Bran. It could’ve been a Lannister. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.” 

Jon’s expression grew harder, his hand flexing at his side, and Sansa made herself cast a look back at Bran. If they’d brought someone who could help him, then it was worth whatever discomfort she may have felt. It was worth all of Jon’s anger. But she didn’t need to stay here and endure it, either.

“It’s late,” she said. “I beg your pardon, but I’d like to go to bed.” 

Without giving them a chance to respond, she hurried past them to the door, keeping her head down and praying neither of them would call her back. They didn’t.

Back in her room, Shae was waiting up for her, sprawled casually across the settee, a slender book with a red cover propped up on her knees. Undoubtedly something scandalous. She was always reading books that made Sansa blush down to her roots.

“I was about to come find you myself,” Shae scolded, not glancing up. Normally Sansa would’ve teased her for what a terrible maid she was, or inquired into the contents of the book, but she wasn’t in the mood tonight. 

At last, when the silence stretched on too long, Shae looked up, her eyes softening as she took Sansa in. “Sitting at your brother’s side day and night and never getting any sleep isn’t going to make him get better any faster. You’ll just make yourself sick too.”

“I know.”

Sansa didn’t need help getting out of her dress, but she let Shae undress her anyway, and when Shae offered to brush out Sansa’s hair, she let her do that too. It felt nice, the slow and steady stroke of the brush. Finally, as Sansa slipped into her bed, Shae stilled her with a touch on her elbow.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

Sansa couldn’t think of a lie, so she told the truth: “My husband has returned.”

.

.

.

That night, Jon stared at the ceiling, desperately willing his thudding heart to calm down. It was all too much. He had thought that coming home would be easier than this, but everything felt so strange: Robb, the man Jon trusted to lead him being treated as a wayward son; Bran, gangly and almost grown and unresponsive in his bed; Uncle Ned, with his murmurs of a conspiracy, his fears that he could not truly trust all his allies.

Sansa.

All this time, when he thought about her — which he tried not to do very often — he pictured her as that pretty little girl of thirteen, the sweet and silly child whose flights of fancy kept him from marrying the woman he loved. His anger toward her had long since cooled. He’d been prepared to annul the marriage and pretend it had never happened. He’d even been prepared to forgive her.

Seeing her was something else entirely, and he was startled to find it was not anger he felt.

Sansa was beautiful, which was about the stupidest thing Jon could think to say about her. Everyone had always known she would be beautiful — but even that seemed too common a word to do her justice. Really, she was _radiant_. Her hair was long and loose around her shoulders, copper-bright and so soft-looking that his fingers itched to touch it. Her blue eyes were sharp and cool and they cut into him like steel for a long moment before they stubbornly turned away. Unmistakably, she was a woman now. Her voice had deepened, something sensual in the way she spoke, and even from the little she said, it was evident she’d become a true lady, intelligent and eloquent, organized and responsible, a woman who ought to be keeping her own home, not simply living in her mother’s.

He shook his head, trying to dislodge the image of her from his mind. It didn’t matter how radiant she was. She was still Robb’s sister, still Uncle Ned’s daughter. He thought about her sobbing on their wedding night. She ought to be married to a man worthy of her, someone whose family name meant something, not hastily shackled to an orphaned bastard like him. 

If the marriage were annulled, what would he do? For the first time in a long time, he remembered Ygritte not as a lost dream but as a person, a woman, in all her fierceness and intensity. Had he truly loved her? Maybe. Yet now, years older, having known more women and lived more of life, it was hard to imagine marrying her. It was hard to imagine making her happy. She’d loved the freedom of her life so far north, and now that he thought about it, she’d shown not a speck of interest in moving south to Winterfell, in joining the Stark clan. Domesticity did not seem to appeal to her. Had they ever even spoken of marriage?

For her sake, he might have stayed north, beyond the Wall — but when the time came that Robb called on him to join him in battle, Jon knew he would never deny him. Even if he’d stayed with Ygritte, a part of him would always belong to the Starks.

It occurred to him that being married to Sansa meant he truly was a part of the Stark family. He’d spent so long denying the marriage that he’d almost forgotten that Robb was his brother now, Arya and Bran and Rickon all closer than cousins. Ned Stark was his father, Catelyn Stark his mother. Angry as Catelyn had been on Jon and Sansa’s wedding night, surely she would forgive him if he could prove that he would protect and cherish her daughter. Surely in time Robb would think him worthy. Surely Sansa could come to care for him.

Jon rolled onto his side and squeezed his eyes shut, surprised by the deep longing that rose within him and threatened to break his heart.

It wouldn’t be fair, using Sansa like that. She deserved to be loved by an honorable man; she deserved a wedding night that didn’t leave her in tears. She deserved the chance to be the kind of woman, the kind of wife and mother, she’d always dreamed of being. He couldn’t take that from her, simply to fulfill his own shameful wish to truly belong.

Still, as he drifted to sleep, it was easy, too easy, to imagine the life that could be his: her body beside his in the bed, soft and warm; the smell of her hair, something like roses and heather; how she would look, round with his child; how her lips might feel beneath his own; the fullness of her breasts in his hands. His cock stirred. He tried to make himself think of Ygritte instead but in his exhaustion the image of her kept dissolving, _changing_, and all night long his mind desperately chased the flash of icy blue eyes and the gleam of soft auburn hair, the elegant curve of a cheek always turning away, always just out of reach. 


End file.
